Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1887-08-26
NO. "a.
Prof. Drummond's Experiences In AZ
ricu.


riCu.
In recent lecture delivered in New
York Prof Drummond Of Scotland gave
an interesting account Of his experiences
as an explorer in Central Africa People
in England and America, the professor said,
had generally most absurd ideas about the
looks of things in the heart Of Africa The
old fashioned notion was that the great
central Africa plateau was desolatc wild
erness, overgrown with forests and iungles,
where the lion aud leopard and hppopota-
mus ranged, rich plumed tropical birds
sang from the branches Of strange trees,
and monkeys swung from limb to limb in
troops. Such was the landscape seen in
the cuts Of the old Biographies The heart
OF Africa, on the contrary, was not a
swamp nor a Jungle, but a high table land,
cut into mountains and lakes, covered with
thin, open woods Of spruce, oak, elms and
low underbrush like the English sumnc.
There were miles and miles Of half clear
plateaus, where the sun shone through mer-
cilessly, soaring the grass and the foliage.
Wild beasts were scarce and villages plen-
tiful, and as for monkeys, one would scarce
ly see one in a month The flowers were
thick enough, but plain and no more strik-
ing than the English forest fora Only
down near the coast belt was the grass
long, rank and yellow, and the hyenas,
crocodiles and hippopotami at home, Cen
tral Africa, the country of the Nyanza, the
source Of the Nile and the Congo, though
equatorial, was no more tropical in flora
and fauna, in the sense that India was
tropical, than Good Hope and the land of
the Kafiirs.
Professor Drummond had Travelled up to
Albert Nyanza from Zanzibar and spent
several months in the region of the great
inland seas, the district Of Stanleys early
explorations. He found the natives less
promising, apparently, than Stanley. There
were no words, the professor said, to go to
the root Of the absolute barbarity of the
equatorial African. One could never know
how amazingly simple and primitive crea-
ture man can be without trip to Africa.
One stick served the native for a spear
fifty for a house. The bark of tree was
turned to use for a canoe or for the uten-
sils of cooking. Beyond this the African
had no needs. 1t was next to impossible
TO create new wants for him He never
worked, if he could help it, Now and
then he went out and stripped square rod
of trees with knife, till the ground was
Uttered with branches. These he burned,
and the rich ashes were washed into the
soil. Then a few handfuls of millet were
scattered in the rows, scratched with a
hoe, and the whole work of a seasons ag-
riculture was over The fertility of the
ground did the rest. The millet crop came
up, and the African gorged himself on it
till the next season of planting.
Millet, Professor Drummond said, was a
tasteless sort of meal, cooked into doughy
porrdge. But the natives enjoyed it with
out tire. He had seen them bolt Jumps of
the stuff as big as a baby, at a single sit
tfr,sr 'le., ..,v,1a III II
idea of time. He had carried a watch
about with him for months to give away to
some chief, but couldn't find one who could
be made to understand what it was meant
for.
The Central Africans had rich morocco
color, and beautiful soft skin which the
professor often envied for binding for some
of the books in his Edinburgh library. But
their life was utterly vacuous their intel
ligence, except in mere sense and instinct
matters, null. He had to make a figure
himself at amusing the chiefs by buttoning
| and unbuttoning his coat, clicking his pis-
tol and burning things with sun glass.
But they never showed glimmer of com
prehension or curiosity, and he got finally
to have good deal of sympathy with the
professional fire-eaters and sword-swallow-
ers at home
Professor Drummond found the mission
station Livingstonia, on the Albert Nyanza,
| deserted when he got there. 1t was one of
the most beautiful spots in the world, but
the pestilence, which threatened everything
in Central Africa, had depopulated it.
There was no escape from this poisonous
malarial fever, 1t always came. Quinine
was the only remedy for it. 1t attacked
black and white alike.
The lecturer said that he was perhaps
the first naturalist who had penetrated so
far into the Dark Continent The geologi-
cal strata in the central plateau were chief
| ly gneiss and granite, the gneiss a good
deal like that of Hudson river. There were
no earth-worms in Africa, and Mr. Drum
mond discovered that the shifting of the
soil, which Mr.. Darwin found was due in
England to the earth-worm, was brought
about in Africa by the white ant. The ant
carried its castings up into the decaying
trees until the branches were plastered with
dirt, and also burrowed up the subsoil into
| ant-heaps fifteen or twenty feet high, which
the rains washed away and scattered.
Some curious insects which counterfeit the
appearance of leaves and bark were then
described, and the lecture closed.